***THIS REVIEW IS SPOILER-FREE!***
SUICIDE SQUAD is not a bad movie, but it is not a great movie either. It's just a movie with a few good performances of skilled and powerful villains who have to act heroic in the face of things more evil than themselves.
Right off the bat, the movie starts out like a montage telling the stories of most of the villains in play to form Task Force X. Adding in some musical flavor helps the first act somewhat move along, then the pacing slows to a crawl when you learn who the main villain of the movie really is. It's somewhat jarring and I was a bit confused in my own realization as to the movie's main antagonist. In retrospect, and when the final credits do roll, the actual villain was nothing more than a waste of a character who could have been one of the more engaging, and very freaky, parts of it.
Getting into the second act means our villains are thrust into a rescue mission. The reveal of who they are rescuing appears to be an attempted plot twist, yet it is less of a twist and more of a shrug when realized.
Leading into the third act is the slowest part of the entire moving as pacing is thrown out of the window and the story crawls into its final chapter. The final showdown is nothing groundbreaking and I found myself doing many slight head shakes in disbelief that a movie with so much promise and potential was nothing more than a bunch of missed opportunities.
I can sit here and tell you that the studio may have intervened and forced changes to be made, but I have no real proof of this. There are a few things in the movie that make no sense and/or are not explained well. Example: Like the main villain making some kind of "machine" to do something really evil to the planet. It is quickly mentioned, as well as shown, then never fully explained. Things like this, as well as a few others, imply some kind of studio meddling most likely due to the bad reception of the release of BATMAN V. SUPERMAN, in March.
[UPDATE: There is now a report claiming there was in fact studio meddling. Click here to read more.]
Another point of confusion and potential studio meddling to note is a small part deep into the movie when one character feels the need to recap everything you've just seen. Did Warner Bros. and DC Films feel that the first two acts of the movie were too confusing and fans would need such an unnecessary recap? It didn't fit and felt like some studio exec was confused and demanded a recap because he/she didn't understand what had already happened.
And dare I forget to mention my letdown of the lack of more fun in this movie. The trailers were presented in such a fun way implicating the fun was just the tip of the iceberg. Unfortunately, it was the majority of the fun in the entire movie.
There was not enough villain debauchery. There was not enough joking between villains. And there was not enough fun banter. The dialogue mostly falls into the realm of thinking it's fun and funnier than it really is. A few months back, when director David Ayer went public to say that reshoots weren't adding more fun into the movie he wasn't kidding around. If they did add any fun into it, it was nowhere near enough.
Let's talk about the main characters.
Deadshot and Harley Quinn are the co-leads. Both have more character development than any other in the film. Harley Quinn sounds more like the version from BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, so this will make fans happy (as well as a classic Easter Egg callback for her shown twice!) but she wasn't crazy enough. It's been reported how Harley Quinn gets crazier when she's when the Joker is near and during the events of this film the Joker is pursuing his lost love and this should make her crazier as she learns he's getting closer to reuniting with her. She never gets crazy enough. A solid performance by Margot Robbie that falls somewhere between the BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES version and the BATMAN: ARKHAM video games version, but more crazy is needed when/if we see Harley Quinn in a future DCEU movie.
Deadshot is a solid character arc throughout the movie. The performance is one that will put Will Smith back on the acting map after a few years of blockbuster misses. I've never been a fan of Deadshot in the comics yet I applaud Smith and Ayer for making me interested in him and now wanting to continue with him on his journey in a hopeful future appearance in either a solo BATMAN movie, or whenever he may appear in the DCEU.
The Joker is a mismatched and underdeveloped villain. Do not go to this movie and think you'll see a lot of the Joker because you're not getting that. His inclusion in SUICIDE SQUAD feels like it was done just so you can get him and Harley Quinn on the screen together for the first time. There are some fun comic book Easter Egg moments between the two, although the movie would have been fine without the Joker in it. The performance does not match the Clown Prince's look either. Jared Leto has these weird moments where he's growling and it sounds like he's even purring, which does not fit his latest big screen look. Sure, they went with a more modern day gangster look for the Joker but the performance nuances and mannerisms just don't fit well. For me, the laugh was the only thing that really worked.
Amanda Waller is another fine performance even though she is is mostly talking to people while sitting down. Her role is the glue of the movie until the third act of the story when things get weird and too coincidental for her. You'll have to see for yourself to understand.
June Moone, and the Enchantress, is a missed opportunity to develop a much better character than what was shown. Personally, I could watch much more of her origin story which is briefly shown as an archeological adventure ending with the discovery, and possession, by the Enchantress. A dark, creepy addition at the start of the movie, Enchantress (and Moone) needed more time with
El Diablo brought some sense of pride, pain and family into the mix of these villains but, just as with Enchantress, not enough time was spent with him to have a larger connection to the movie. Most of the time he is just standing in the background refusing to fight while the other team members fight. But when he lets loose... watch out!
Other characters like Killer Croc (who you can barely understand what he's saying), Captain Boomerang, Katana and Slipknot are glazed over where you won't have much investment in any of them. At least that's how I felt about them since they were the most underused characters in the entire film. And I won't forget about Rick Flag, who never felt like a real officer in the military, and while his role in the movie is important it should have been a bigger focus because he was such an important role.
Then there's The Batman. When Batman shows up you just want more Batman, and never get enough Batman. His (as well as another hero cameo) is just a way to connect this movie with the larger DCEU and honestly, for as much as I wanted more Batman in this, I could have done without any Batman. He is just the connective tissue to the larger, expanded movie universe more than anything else.
All-in-all SUICIDE SQUAD is a movie that teased fans what its potential might have been via its trailers and television spots but fell way short of expectations. I get what Ayer was trying to create but it feels like Warner Bros. executives meddled too much. I wish I got the movie with more fun villainous debauchery teased in trailers, instead, I got a movie where most of its best moments were in the trailers. A movie about bad guys should have more bad in it, while being able to show how some villains have a bigger heart than others, like with Deadshot. Yet in the end it is just a not-so-memorable movie and one I hope gets an extended cut released because it might make it a better movie than what I saw last night in the theater.
Written by Daniel Wolf, DailySuperHero.com Founder & Publisher
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